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Brayton Ives

American financier and railwayman (1840-1914)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ4958571
Source-derived summary

Brayton Ives (August 23, 1840 – October 22, 1914) was president of Northern Pacific Railway from 1893 to 1896 and was president of the New York Stock Exchange and the Western National Bank of New York. He also served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Early life

Ives was born on August 23, 1840, in Farmington, Connecticut. He was a son of William A. Ives and Julia (née Root).

He graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1861.

Career

He served in the American Civil War as assistant adjutant general on the staff of Brigadier General Orris S. Ferry and became the Colonel of the 1st Connecticut Cavalry Regiment. He was brevetted brigadier general for gallantry at the battles of Ream's Station, Deep Bottom, Five Forks, and Sailor's Creek.

Ives became a prominent New York financier by 1868 and served two terms as president of the New York Stock Exchange; he was president of the Western National Bank of New York for many years and was chosen president of Northern Pacific Railway on 20 October 1893. At the time of his death he was President of the Hecker-Jones-Jewell Milling Company, the Standard Milling Company, the Kanona & Prattsburg Railway Company, and the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company.

In 1912, he resigned as president of the Metropolitan Trust Company due to his poor health.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Brayton Ives” as american financier and railwayman (1840-1914). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1840, 1914, 1893, 1896—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1840-08-23. The account is most persuasive where Brayton, Ives and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american financier and railwayman (1840-1914). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4958571. VIAF identifies the subject as 45691554. The Library of Congress control number is n84001824. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1914, 1893 and 1896.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Brayton Ives” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.